s weapons
fail him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates,
when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his
chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner;
the niggard starves from abstinence. Give the dice a fair throw and you
will find shipwreck everywhere! Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves
obtains no burial! As though it matters in what manner the body, once it
is dead, is consumed: by fire, by flood, by time! Do what you will,
these all achieve the same end. Ah, but the beasts will mangle the body!
As though fire would deal with it any more gently; when we are angry with
our slaves that is the punishment which we consider the most severe.
What folly it is, then, to do everything we can to prevent the grave from
leaving any part of us behind {when the Fates will look out for us, even
against our wills."} (After these reflections we made ready to pay the
last rites to the corpse,) and Lycas was burned upon a funeral pyre
raised by the hands of enemies, while Eumolpus, fixing his eyes upon the
far distance to gain inspiration, composed an epitaph for the dead man:

HIS FATE WAS UNAVOIDABLE

NO ROCK-HEWN TOMB NOR SCULPTURED MARBLE HIS,

HIS NOBLE CORPSE FIVE FEET OF EARTH RECEIVED,

HE RESTS IN PEACE BENEATH THIS HUMBLE MOUND.

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH.

We set out upon our intended journey, after this last office had been
wholeheartedly performed, and, in a little while, arrived, sweating, at
the top of a mountain, from which we made out, at no great distance, a
town, perched upon the summit of a lofty eminence. Wanderers as we were,
we had no idea what town it could be, until we learned from a caretaker
that it was Crotona, a very ancient city, and once the first in Italy.
When we earnestly inquired, upon learning this, what men inhabited such
historic ground, and the nature of the business in which they were
principally engaged, now that their wealth had been dissipated by the oft
recurring wars, "My friends," replied he, "if you are men of business,
change your plans and seek out some other conservative road to a
livelihood, but if you can play the part of men of great culture, always
ready with a lie, you are on the straight road to riches: The study of
literature is held in no estimation in that city, eloquence has no niche
there, economy and decent stand